System Design of E-Markets for IPSS Purchasing

The production of labor cost intense goods in industrial countries becomes increasingly unprofitable, unless add-on values can be delivered by supporting services. Research in Industrial Product Service Systems (IPSS) - a marketable set of products and services - focuses on all aspects of IPSS and supports the conversion of industrial countries towards a service society. This fundamental change in paradigm sometimes described as the 'servizitation of manufacturing' could be seen as survival strategy against low labor costs within a global market. However, industrial procurement perceives IPSS as more difficult to assess than product offers. Buying departments are challenged to compare values of different IPSS on an international market. Information asymmetry between expert seller and consumer, hidden information or outcome uncertainties are some of the reasons, that buyers perceive risks at IPSS purchasing. The complexity of working systems that support nowadays purchasing environments increased. Until now, no standardized systems such as e-markets are suitable to support buyers to find and compare available IPSS. This paper describes design guidelines for a system that supports the search, discovery and comparison of IPSS.